Let's help Jim Malcolm

In the recent interview, in which a head of the Pentax Ricoh imaging USA talks about his learnings about Pentaxians and his visions about the future landscape of imaging industry, featured is a screen shot. It is a screen shot of the Facebook thread started to solicit public views and insight into personal desires of the Pentaxians. And the *very first* response in the thread reads: "when comes FF?".

Reflecting back to Jim's words in the interview, I'm not sure whether that was quite ironic, or hilarious.And somehow, one cannot avoid a very likely conclusion that Jim Malcolm shows he wants to hear only that what he has in store to sell — and not what users would really like to see.

Maybe it is true he wants to hear only that people want more colourful K30s, more colourful Q10s. It reminds me of this Simpson episode (move to 1:00 min, please )

Marge: Can I just have a cup of coffee.Bartender: Beer it is.Marge: No, I said coffee.Bartender: Beer ..Marge: Coff .. eeBartender: Be .. er.

Our analogy would be something like this:

LET"S HELP JIM

In the same interview, Jim expressed a wish to talk to Pentaxians who have left the Pentax brand. Maybe you, who have jumped ships and read this thread, can add your comments below, or your detailed or short responses about why have you done that — switched to other brands.

It may give Pentax Ricoh USA some insights valuable for the future of those who still cling around. PF already does something similar, and I thought that perhaps our valuable members here can add something to it.

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Zvonimir Tosic“A portrait is not made in the camera, but on either side of it.”— Edward Steichen

Just bought a Canon 6D for Full Frame. I still have my Pentax gear but will be selling to buy additional lenses and other Canon gear. I have moved to mainly shooting landscape photography so FF is essential.

Just bought a Canon 6D for Full Frame. I still have my Pentax gear but will be selling to buy additional lenses and other Canon gear. I have moved to mainly shooting landscape photography so FF is essential.

I have held out too long for a Pentax FF camera.

I'm pretty much going to do the same thing. I have a K5 but have not bought a FF yet but will in the near future. Decided to go to a 5D3 and once i have it i will start selling my Pentax gear to get more lenses. I really like my K5 so it's not because the product is bad, just looking to go FF and Pentax does not provide a choice.

I left because of the arrogance (or ineptitude, can't figure out which) of Pentax, even under Ricoh. Just looking for some sort of commitment to their intentions. Nikon and Canon (and even Sony, Olympus and Fuji) have put a stake in the ground and let their potential users know where they stand. Pentax seems to provide a haphazard, meandering approach to its products.

While it's out of my price range, the 645D is unbelieveable, as were the K-5 and K-30 when introduced (lack of vertical grip was a killer for me with the K-30 though). The lens selection seems to go in spurts with different types of motors and cosmetics, and the prioritization on things like a 560mm are head-scratchers. Heck, even the GRX is a beautiful and innovative camera (which predates the acquisition), which tells me that both Pentax and Ricoh have the DNA to make special cameras.

Pentax has a long history of redundancy (think of how may ZX - style bodies they put out during the early 90's and the *ist D, DL, DS, etc. with few true differentiable features), and it appears they're willing to continue to repeat themselves, even under new ownership.

I'm not in the camp that NEEDS full-frame, I just want to know once and for all if Pentax is going to screw me if I decide to load up on DA Limiteds. If full-frame is in the cards, let's have some sort of timeline.

Japan seems to be amused with the Q series and all the colors. To me, that is the only audience Pentax seems to be truly catering to. That's not something Jim Malcolm will be able to influence if Pentax doesn't value his home market.

In the end, life's too short to continue to dwell on what Pentax is doing. I need to move on to another brand with a clearer path (no brand has a "clear" path). I'm happier now as a result, but the sad part is I was ready to spend thousands of dollars on Pentax gear instead.

Japan seems to be amused with the Q series and all the colors. To me, that is the only audience Pentax seems to be truly catering to. That's not something Jim Malcolm will be able to influence if Pentax doesn't value his home market.

I bought a 5D after trying a colleague's camera. The reason initially was the very low price and excellent performance of the 5Dc.

Then I fall in love with the 5D color rendering, the capacity to use the lenses with their real focal length, the better control of DOF for portraiture, the better image quality when printing, better focusing system than original k5 (focus point is too large in the original k5 and is almost an outdated technology).

I was considering for a while the k5-iis, but for an additional few hundred dollars I got a 6D. Now that I have several FF Canon lenses and that I have been using a FF system, I have a clear road map of where I want to go in terms of camera/lenses.

Put me in the camp of "almost switching." For me, it is not "do I need 35mm sensor," it is "I WANT a 35 mm SENSOR!" If marketing doesn't want to listen to that, then I guess my money deserves to go to a competitor.

I grew up with K1000, still have a KX and MX, and my 3 sharpest lenses are K35f2, K55f1.8, and M50f4 macro. I have used them plus many other M and A primes and zooms on a K-r body, and like the image quality, despite it being only 12MPix. For me, being able to use these yummy all-metal manual focus lenses on a digital body makes photography enjoyable to me.

One option is to get a Ni**n with some older manual focus lenses, plus a couple AF zooms to round out the quiver of lenses. I would do the same with Pentax 35mm digital sensor body if Pentax made one and some new AF lenses to go with it. But I've waited too long, so Ni**n I go. That will be about $3500 worth of new equipment that Pentax will miss out on me. Heck I can still use my Metz Pentax flashes with wireless remotes in manual mode with that Ni**n and my flash meter.

In the off chance that Mr. Jim Malcolm reads this, the building negative sentiment in online social media will pretty much finish off the Pentax side of things.

A fullframe Pentax would be interesting and even nice but is hardly necessary given the image quality you can get from the K-5.

What keeps me thinking of other systems is Pentax's lack of support for long lens work: No 1.4 teleconverter, no 400/5.6. And every time I shoot with my Canon gear I remember how good autofocus can actually be.

Organizing a lynch mob? How could he dare talking with Pentaxians, and even talking about the feedback he received! Such talks are unnecessary, we all know there's only the Holy Full Frame in this world, and nothing else!

Organizing a lynch mob? How could he dare talking with Pentaxians, and even talking about the feedback he received! Such talks are unnecessary, we all know there's only the Holy Full Frame in this world, and nothing else!

Alex

Not at all. Mr Malcolm really wants feedback.

In the interview, Jim states:

... That’s not to say that what they’d been planning is necessarily wrong—you don’t necessarily want to just follow, you have to lead. But being able to lead our loyal customers and deliver to them on our kind of brand promise and setting a brand direction, which is not really set for Pentax right now... don’t assume that you have the answers until you talk to people.

And then in the conclusion:

When asked whether the Facebook outreach program would continue, Jim said that there is a certain saturation point where you inevitably begin to hear the same answers over and over again, so the current flavor of Q&A will probably be scaled back. The next phase, he says, is to "find people who have abandoned the brand" and figure out why that happened. He also hopes to talk to some shooters already loyal to other brands, to find out what could bring them into the Pentaxian fold.

Problem is, anything posted in the public forum like this one may look like lynch mob rising, but it isn't. However, there is certainly a discrepancy between some of Jim's statements and the overall feeling from online Pentax forums members. So maybe Pentax users may clarify ...

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Zvonimir Tosic“A portrait is not made in the camera, but on either side of it.”— Edward Steichen

Good idea. What I did is send an email to that email address telling Jim my opinion, if everyone did that, Jim will know there are people who wants FF.

But very likely, Jim is just like Ned, have zero input to the development team in Japan (and have no idea what they are developing). He is just a salesman. But for him to say PENTAX/RICOH will be one of the top 3 camera manufacturers beside Canon and Nikon in 3-5 yrs.... and competing with ... what? Q? and without FF? either he is on drug or he just want to impress his new boss. Unless PENTAX/RICOH manage to sell 645DII around $4000 new. Else this guy is dreaming / he retired after 3-5 yrs, like Ned.

Good idea. What I did is send an email to that email address telling Jim my opinion, if everyone did that, Jim will know there are people who wants FF.

But very likely, Jim is just like Ned, have zero input to the development team in Japan (and have no idea what they are developing). He is just a salesman. But for him to say PENTAX/RICOH will be one of the top 3 camera manufacturers beside Canon and Nikon in 3-5 yrs.... and competing with ... what? Q? and without FF?

Yeah, Pentax currently have only the Q; maybe they should try making a K-mount DSLR

either he is on drug or he just want to impress his new boss. Unless PENTAX/RICOH manage to sell 645DII around $4000 new. Else this guy is dreaming / he retired after 3-5 yrs, like Ned.

I'm sure you can do much better.

By the way, I'd bet he's not isolated from Pentax Japan, and actually receives info from them. For example, the decision to make Pentax Ricoh the 3rd imaging company, in a given timeframe.

So let me just get this straight in my mind - we have a guy in Romania taking a guy in Australia to task for commenting on the recent public comments of an executive VP of an American company? And I'm sure others (such as myself) contributing to this thread are not in the USA either. Very odd.

I've recently made a couple of posts in similar (full frame/35mm) type of threads and I don't want to flog a dead horse but here's my take on this - again.

There are undoubtedly Pentax users who would love a Pentax full frame affordable body but I believe it's a minority. Some want a full frame simply because it's the current "holy grail". I've glibly suggested previously that 90% of Pentax shooters are happy with APS-C. The number just came out of my head and I can't substantiate it, but I feel strongly that I'm right.

This, as various contributors are at pains to point out from time to time, is a gear forum. It is hardly surprising that quite a large proportion go on about full frame. But honestly, I wonder how many unique contributors there are to this (Pentax SLR Talk) forum in, say, a month? A hundred? Two hundred? Of those how many are looking forward to a full frame purchase in the near future? 10%? 20%? I figure it's not really very many. Our local camera club has well over a hundred members with 80 or so regularly attending meetings (not many Pentax shooters admittedly). Neighbouring suburbs also have very healthy clubs. Enquiries reveal that while many of these camera club members are quite familiar with DPReview, few of them are regular contributors or even particularly regular browsers. And why is this, I've asked myself? My conclusion is that active members of camera clubs are actually photographers. Very few are true gearheads. They're too busy taking and processing and printing and exhibiting their photographs - because they're photographers. Here in this rarified atmosphere of the "gear centric" forum, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that we represent the majority of Pentax photography people. But we really don't.

In the last 6 or so years I've spent well upwards of $10K on my photography gear. Most of my lenses suit APS-C, not full frame. If I stick with APS-C I can upgrade to a new body and maybe spend a few dollars on a lens for around $2K to $2.5K - if I had to transfer everything to FF I'd need to find $5K to $7K at least. For a relatively slight improvement in IQ, why would I do that?

So in summary, if you're a professional photographer, a moderately well off photographer or a very committed gear orientated photographer, go for it. But if you stay with your APS-C gear I'm sure you'll be able to turn out images virtually every bit as good and every bit as satisfying as the FF converts.

Put me in the camp of "almost switching." For me, it is not "do I need 35mm sensor," it is "I WANT a 35 mm SENSOR!" If marketing doesn't want to listen to that, then I guess my money deserves to go to a competitor.

I grew up with K1000, still have a KX and MX, and my 3 sharpest lenses are K35f2, K55f1.8, and M50f4 macro. I have used them plus many other M and A primes and zooms on a K-r body, and like the image quality, despite it being only 12MPix. For me, being able to use these yummy all-metal manual focus lenses on a digital body makes photography enjoyable to me.

One option is to get a Ni**n with some older manual focus lenses, plus a couple AF zooms to round out the quiver of lenses. I would do the same with Pentax 35mm digital sensor body if Pentax made one and some new AF lenses to go with it. But I've waited too long, so Ni**n I go. That will be about $3500 worth of new equipment that Pentax will miss out on me. Heck I can still use my Metz Pentax flashes with wireless remotes in manual mode with that Ni**n and my flash meter.

In the off chance that Mr. Jim Malcolm reads this, the building negative sentiment in online social media will pretty much finish off the Pentax side of things.

Agreed ,

I also have Nikon FF kit supplied by work , but I don't like toting bricks around with huge heavy lumps of glass hanging off them and the sore back that results .

The Nikon stuff is for work ; I shoot Pentax for recreation .

I still have all my Pentax film kit , went digital with a used *istD , recently bought a second *istD body to replace the first one after I dropped it ( although it still works , despite a broken flash shoe ) and love using it with my SMC-M primes . I've toyed with buying a K10 , K20 , K7 , K5 but always held back for that elusive FF so that my lenses will once again have their intended effective focal lengths .

Although I mostly buy used equipment , I do sometimes buy new ( as with my Km which started me with Pentax , one of my two MX's and one of my two LX's , as well as numerous lenses , flashes etc ) - all of which served as reliable workhorses for many years and all of which I still have , along with numerous other cameras . I also bought my daughter a new K10D for her 21st , when it was current .

I do have money to spend on the 'right' new camera , but so far Pentax haven't come up with anything that makes me want to slap a wad on the counter , not just yet .

I want a more compact FF DSLR that I can mount my Pentax prime lenses onto , see well enough to manually focus accurately on thanks to a proper FF viewfinder , and have some fun taking creative photographs .

If Pentax don't make one , I'm seriously thinking of going back to shooting film recreationally and getting a better scanner than I have just now .

I still have all my Pentax gear, which is a lot of high-end gear. I haven't brought any new Oentax gear since the gps unit came out. Pentax just haven't came out with anything I really wanted except for the DA560, which is kind of out of my price range.

Last year after Pentax released the K-01 I brought an Olympus E-M5 and then a bunch of fast m-4/3 lenses. It is really fun shoting with fast lenses again. The image quality is very close to my K-5. Now Iwant to have FF to compliment my E-M5. So I am in the wait and see mode, but most likely will get a FF camera for my next dslr camera.